EEPOET 



OF 



PROFESSOR HENRY, SECRETARY OF THE SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 



FOR 



1868. 



To the Board of -Regents : 



Gentlemen : Nothing has occurred during the past year of a charac- 

 ter demanding the special action of the Board. Indeed, the policy of the 

 Institution originally adopted has become so firmly settled and so widely 

 known, as well as properly appreciated, that few difficulties are now 

 likely to present themselves in the administration of the trust which do 

 not find a solution in some precedent in the experience of the past. The i 

 funds appropriated at the last session have been devoted to the different 

 objects for which they were designated, and the several classes of opera- 

 tions which were inaugurated at the commencement of the Institution 

 have been prosecuted with as much efficiency as the means at disposal 

 would permit. From the first there has been no want of unoccupied 

 fields inviting attention, and well adapted with judicious cultivation to 

 yield a plentiful harvest of additions to science. Indeed, the only sub- 

 ject of regret suggested by a review of the past, or a survey of the pres- 

 ent, is the application of so large a portion of the income to objects which, 

 though in most cases important in themselves, are not, as is now gener- 

 ally conceded, strictly reconcilable either with the scope or the terms of 

 the endowment. The guardians of the Institution are not, however, 

 responsible for these expenditures, which had their origin in a general mis- 

 conception of the import of the bequest at the time when Congress enacted 

 the law organizing the Institution. On the contrary, the administration 

 has been such as to correct, as far as possible, the errors above mentioned, 

 and to present to the world an example worthy of imitation in the manage- 

 ment of other establishments founded on trust funds. The directors have 

 ever been deeply impressed with a sense of the importance of the trust 

 committed to their charge, not only in consideration of the good which 

 might directly result from it, but also on account of the influence which 

 so conspicuous, and in many respects so original an enterprise, could not 

 fail to have upon the world. Man is an imitative being, and among the 

 many individuals in this country who have accumulated princely fortunes 



